118 RHETORICA modello humboldtiano del seminario, e dalla sua attivitá di organizzatore di seminari al Warburg Institute di Londra (1967-1983). Da quei seminari e da altri, tenuti da Momigliano in tutto il mondo, nascono la serie dei suoi Contributi (1955-1992) e la maggior parte delle sue pubblicazioni, che conservano lo stile órale e discorsivo delEoccasione in cui videro la luce non per pigrizia del suo autore, ma per una precisa scelta ideológica sullo strumento con cui comunicare il proprio pensiero. Nel suo contributo Giorgio Colli. Lo stile come laboratorio ermeneutico (pp. 92-108), l'altro curatore, Angelo Giavatto, si dedica alio stile, personalissimo , con cui Colli ha trasmesso il suo sapere sulla filosofía presocratica e platónica: lo studio é partito dalla tesi di laurea di Colli (1939), di cui sono stati recentemente pubblicati dal figlio Enrico il capitolo su Platone politico (Milano: Adelphi, 2007) e quello sui presocratici (Filosofi sovrumani, Milano: Adelphi, 2009). Tra la stesura del capitolo platónico e quello sui Presocratici si inserisce la lettura de La nascita della tragedia di F. Nietzsche, avvenuta intorno al 1937: un evento che avrebbe radicalmente influenzato sia gli inte_ V ressi di Colli, spostandoli da Platone ai Presocratici, sia lo stile. E noto che Colli proponeva una lettura dei Presocratici in termini di tensione tra misti­ cismo (tendenza al ritiro, all'ineffabilitá e all'incomunicabilitá) e politica (la volontá di dare forma pubblica al pensiero per renderlo fruttifero nelle realtá politiche in cui i Presocratici vissero). Nel linguaggio, questo dualismo si manifesta nelle forme delYenigma, proprio di un sapere ineffabile, e del problema, che é alia base del dialogo, la forma di trasmissione "politica" della sapienza filosófica. Questo approccio produce conseguenze anche sullo stile di Colli, che dal Platone politico, in cui ancora persegue una chiarezza espositiva , giunge nei Filosofi sovrumani a due forme espressive, una piú posata per le parti "politiche" e una che riprende aspetti dello stile di Nietzsche, lapida­ rio e aforistico, per descrivere la mistica. Chiude il volume, generalmente ben curato a parte qualche refuso di troppo nel lavoro di Mucignat (brutto "un unitá" a p. 74), un utile indice dei personaggi e degli episodi citati. Giancarlo Abbamonte, University Federico II of Naples Lynda Walsh, Scientists as Prophets: A Rhetorical Genealogy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. pp. 264. ISBN: 978-01-99-85709-8 (HB) We all know the old truism that art is best when the artist is not seen. This poses a particularly steep challenge for rhetoric since it moves in public spaces where personal motives abound. Scientists, by contrast, since they deal with the world of things rather than persons, wear nature as a kind of rhetorical camouflage. Customarily we attribute this to their abiding positivism, but Walsh sees in it a role identity that emulates and in fact descends from the prophetic traditions of old. Superficiallv this mav seem Reviews 119 fanciful, but not when we consider the kind of ethos science needs in order to thrive. Its appropriation of a prophetic identity created within its modern host cultures (p. 4) "a coherent set of expectations" and thus a role and iden­ tity that drew it out from the margins. That fell into place four centuries ago as the Reformation gave opportunity to various extensions of the prophetic role, but similar symbolic patterns persist due to the mimetic character of cultural development and to a persisting set of situational constraints or kairoi. Like its ancestral counterparts, science's prophetic ethos enables it to manufacture certainty" (p. 2) for polities, the certainty of conviction that powers action. This perspective explains the persistent failure of what Walsh calls the "deficit model" of scientific communication. Scientists struggle against pub­ lic ignorance and resistance, but the obvious solution, more and better sci­ entific education, never seems to help. The deficit models cannot account for the "upward pull of stases" (pp. 88-9). Consumers of science and cer­ tainly many scientific practitioners (at least when they are not speaking ex officio) are spontaneous!}' drawn off the technical backroads of fact and def­ inition and onto the highways of value and action. This "upward pull" can­ not be explained either bv scientific understanding...

Book Review| December 01 2017 Storm of Words: Science, Religion, and Evolution in the Civil War Era Storm of Words: Science, Religion, and Evolution in the Civil War Era. By Monte Harrell Hampton. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2014; pp. ix + 345. $59.95 cloth. Thomas M. Lessl Thomas M. Lessl University of Georgia Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2017) 20 (4): 764–767. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.20.4.0764 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Thomas M. Lessl; Storm of Words: Science, Religion, and Evolution in the Civil War Era. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2017; 20 (4): 764–767. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.20.4.0764 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2017 Michigan State University Board of Trustees. All rights reserved.2017 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| February 01 2017 Review: Scientists as Prophets: A Rhetorical Genealogy Lynda Walsh, Scientists as Prophets: A Rhetorical Genealogy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. pp. 264. ISBN: 978-01-99-85709-8 (HB) Thomas M. Lessl Thomas M. Lessl Thomas M. Lessl Department of Communication Studies University of Georgia 625 Caldwell Hall Athens, GA 30602 USA tlessl@uga.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2017) 35 (1): 118–120. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2017.35.1.118 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Thomas M. Lessl; Review: Scientists as Prophets: A Rhetorical Genealogy. Rhetorica 1 February 2017; 35 (1): 118–120. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2017.35.1.118 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2017 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2017 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.